Institut C.D. HOWE Institute Signposts Essential Policy Intelligence | Conseils indispensables sur les politiques of Success August 21, 2013 Identifying Alberta’s Best Schools: 2010-2012 Private Schools Private Schools Tables How do parents, teachers, taxpayers and school administrators know if children are attending a good school? A school cannot be considered a success just because a high percentage of its students are successful; nor can schools be meaningfully ranked on that basis. A school with strong standardized test results could simply be a school where students come from more advantaged backgrounds. But not all variation in school results can be explained by variation in social and economic characteristics. By controlling for characteristics of schools’ students and the communities they come from, we present a measure of success for each school when compared with similar schools. The schools are organized alphabetically by school board and then by school name. Description of Variables Students: The number of students in grade 3, grade 6 or grade 9 who were eligible to take the Provincial Achievement Test (PAT) (three year total). Adjusted Excellent Rate: The percentage of all students who achieve the “standard of excellence.” The adjusted excellent rate is the difference between the school’s excellent rate and the provincial average excellent rate on each test. A positive value indicates the school has a higher excellent rate than the provincial average; a negative value indicates the opposite. Outcomes are averaged over the assessments written at a school, with each assessment weighted equally. Predicted Adjusted Excellent Rate: The excellent rate that a given school would be expected to attain given the performance of other schools in similar socio-economic environments, minus the provincial average excellent rate. Essential Policy Intelligence Signposts of Success Percentile: A performance measure adjusted for observable social and economic characteristics and variation in the average score on assessments. Percentiles go from 0 to 100. Schools that score exactly as predicted get a percentile of 50. The predicted adjusted excellent rate is subtracted from the actual adjusted excellent rate and expressed as a percentile. A percentile value of 90 indicates that this school’s outcome is higher than 90 percent of other similar schools in the province. A value of 10 indicates that this school’s result is higher than only 10 percent of other similar schools or, equivalently, that 90 percent of similar schools score better than this school. A similar school has a set of social and economic indicators that predict the same predicted adjusted excellent rate. Small differences, for example one or five unit differences in percentile ratings, are not of any interest. It is the large gaps between the 90th percentile schools and the 10th percentile schools that are of the most interest. A note on missing values for some schools: Some schools’ performance indicators are missing, for three reasons. First, the results in a grade in a year at a school are suppressed for privacy reasons when there are less than 15 students in the grade. Second, the predicted and percentile indicators for a given school and grade are shown only if outcomes for at least 45 students in total were available. Johnson (2005) explains why it is important to compare schools using a large number of individual students. Third, I do not include students who write certain French language assessments or Knowledge and Employability (KAE) assessments. The schools are organized alphabetically by school board and then by school name. Please cite the source of these indicators as: The David Johnson / C.D. Howe Institute Alberta School Performance Database (2013) The details concerning the construction of these statistics can be found in: Johnson, David. 2013. Identifying Alberta’s Best Schools. C.D. Howe Institute E-Brief 164, http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/e-brief_164.pdf Researchers interested in obtaining this database in a useable electronic format to carry out their own research should contact the C.D. Howe Institute at [email protected] with a short description of their research project. Essential Policy Intelligence 3 Identifying Alberta’s Best Schools: 2010-2012 Signposts of Success Grade 3 Results Grade 6 Results Grade 9 Results Predicted Predicted Predicted Adjusted Adjusted Adjusted Adjusted Adjusted Adjusted Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent School No. School Name Students Rate Rate Percentile Students Rate Rate Percentile Students Rate Rate Percentile Private Schools 5197 Airdrie Koinonia Christian School 67 19.6 3.1 96 64 3.4 2.7 53 61 8.2 1.2 80 9914 Akiva Academy 2 1545 Art Smith Aviation Academy 36 -8.1 20 -1.5 1397 Aurora Learning Calgary 6 1387 Aurora Learning Foundation 4 7 6 9935 Banbury Crossroads School 9 10 10 9927 Bearspaw Christian School & College 131 8.3 9.2 46 119 23.1 10.6 91 130 12.3 9.7 63 7989 Bethel Christian Academy 12 15 9908 Calgary Academy 29 -17.7 118 -11.8 19.6 0 217 -6.0 18.2 0 1015 Calgary Academy Collegiate 27 15.0 29 18.0 796 Calgary French & International School 314 318 20.0 204 9969 Calgary Islamic Private School 248 5.0 -5.6 87 194 -10.0 -5.6 32 137 -3.8 -4.6 54 9911 Calgary Jewish Academy 86 26.2 12.4 93 64 20.0 14.7 72 55 14.0 5398 Calgary Quest School 33 46 0.7 35 9949 Calgary Waldorf School 70 23.9 14.9 83 68 14.0 17.5 35 56 16.7 6496 Calvin Christian School 207 18.5 -5.4 99 192 3.0 -6.2 84 154 -1.1 -6.2 73 6990 Cherry Coulee Christian Academy 10 11 8 9916 Chinook Winds Adventist Academy 24 44 -13.0 46 -1.1 3.6 28 7976 Clear Water Academy 101 35.5 14.2 99 84 51.5 16.8 100 87 27.8 15.9 93 1197 Cleardale Mennonite School 6494 Coaldale Christian School 27 47.9 34 36.6 30 9.8 4390 College Heights Christian School 29 31 40 -6.4 577 Columbus Academy 3 9 7916 Concordia High School 16 -11.8 7936 Coralwood Adventist Academy 41 -9.4 30 29 -6.6 6894 Cornerstone Christian School 12 11 2390 Covenant Canadian Reformed School 47 -6.9 3.8 13 38 -8.9 30 -4.8 9972 Delta West Academy 34 15.6 18 29 14.8 4494 Destiny Christian School Society 38 -1.2 34 26 -3.0 3290 Devon Christian School 25 -3.5 14 15 478 Eastside Christian Academy 22 17 14 428 Edge School 65 8.5 15.4 23 133 14.5 14.0 53 5393 Edison School 53 37.8 6.5 100 33 28.4 33 29.0 7953 Edmonton Academy 22 7920 Edmonton Bible Heritage Christian School 1 4 7901 Edmonton Islamic Academy 214 -3.6 -3.3 49 200 -6.9 -2.8 33 145 -4.6 -2.2 38 4 Identifying Alberta’s Best Schools: 2010-2012 Signposts of Success Grade 3 Results Grade 6 Results Grade 9 Results Predicted Predicted Predicted Adjusted Adjusted Adjusted Adjusted Adjusted Adjusted Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent School No. School Name Students Rate Rate Percentile Students Rate Rate Percentile Students Rate Rate Percentile 1006 Edmonton Khalsa School 69 2.9 -1.9 70 49 -8.7 7964 Edmonton Menorah Academy 24 -4.5 19 11 655 Elves Child Development Centre 6 11 7960 Faith Lutheran School 9 9917 Foothills Academy 48 -13.1 10.3 1 93 -7.7 10.0 2 539 Green Learning Academy 27 19 16 98 Harvest Baptist Academy 8 1008 Headway School Society of Alberta 87 -11.6 -1.2 14 61 -15.3 -0.7 6 52 -9.3 -0.5 14 1495 High Level Christian Academy 11 15 19 5007 Higher Ground Christian School 5 5 1194 Hillcrest Christian School 9 15 6 5491 Hope Christian School 19 13 21 305 Immanuel Christian Elementary School 105 15.1 -3.3 97 107 7.0 -3.8 88 6491 Immanuel Christian High School 128 13.0 -3.2 98 1212 International School of Excellence 36 14.1 27 -4.9 27 -3.3 32 Janus Academy 16 9 1323 Janus Academy (Holy Cross Site) 4 1383 Khalsa School Calgary Educational Foundation 90 -4.0 -5.2 55 65 7.2 -5.2 91 15 -3.1 5792 Kneehill Christian School 5195 Koinonia Christian School (Red Deer) 38 -3.1 37 0.5 31 -0.3 4392 Lacombe Christian School 87 7.4 1.1 74 109 0.4 0.9 48 130 3.9 0.8 65 2986 Lakeland Christian Academy 3 2 4394 Lighthouse Christian School 15 20 24 -13.4 1474 Living Truth Christian School 2299 Living Waters Christian Academy 47 -7.5 1.1 18 58 5.1 0.4 69 49 8.0 -1.0 86 9919 Lycee Louis Pasteur 196 15.3 128 72 3193 Mamawi Atosketan Native School 60 -23.4 -25.6 60 44 -14.8 28 -18.8 1410 Maria Montessori School 28 8 1295 Meadows Baptist Academy 8 11 254 Montessori School of Calgary 13 5 2593 Morinville Christian School 8 10 8 308 Mountain View Academy 20 -6.2 13 22 432 New Heights School and Learning Services 5 14 11 6796 Newell Christian School 18 12 24 1392 Northern Lights School 1 2 5591 Old Sun Community College 5198 Olds Mountain View Christian School 8 2 2293 Parkland Immanuel Christian School 61 13.0 2.6 86 45 10.0 2.6 79 34 14.8 5 Identifying Alberta’s Best Schools: 2010-2012 Signposts of Success Grade 3 Results Grade 6 Results Grade 9 Results Predicted Predicted Predicted Adjusted Adjusted Adjusted Adjusted Adjusted Adjusted Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent School No.